Call of Duty: Black Ops (Game Review)

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Review

Activision is no stranger to releasing successful, war-based first person shooters if Modern Warfare 2 is any indication. It sold in the neighborhood of 20 million copies by June 2010, thus I'm sure everyone at Activision is elated that Treyarch finished development on Call of Duty: Black Ops. The presentation takes place between 1961 to 1968 and puts the player into the boots of Alex Mason, a soldier that had a key role in the Bay of Pigs operation. At the start of the story, Mason is being interrogated by an unknown person and the game launches into how Mason got to this point. The pacing of the Cold War plot progression is fantastic and mostly centers on the acquisition of a chemical weapon created by the Soviets called Nova-6. Similar to Modern Warfare 2, there are some fantastic, bombastic action scenes in the game that bring that movie-level quality to the presentation.

However, there are few changes to the core structure of the single player gameplay. This isn't an open world game and you are forced into a single path to complete each level. The control system is also identical allowing for the character to stand, run, crouch or go prone. Damage is handled with the typical red screen flashing and regeneration occurs when the player is behind cover. You are still jumping around into the perspective of different soldiers between levels and the artificial intelligence of the enemy soldiers is still fairly stupid.

Where Treyarch attempts to make their mark in the CoD franchise is in new weaponry, the ability to actual control vehicles and the occasional interlude into different gameplay styles like controlling a squad of players or blowing a nasty rocket out of the sky with some heavy duty firepower. My favorite new weapon is the Dragon's Breath, a shotgun that fires pyrotechnic rounds and setting enemies on fire. There's also a phenomenal crossbow with a giant scope for a more silent entry. Although, the standard assault rifle / SMG combo seems to be just as effective for taking down the opponents. Vehicles include bikes, cars, boats and even choppers. The path is still linear, but controlling the direction of the vehicles rather than simply being the gunner offers the illusion of control.

The trophies included for the PS3 version offer a variety of both single and multiplayer achievements for players to earn. It's a decent balance of simple bronze tasks (like escaping Vorkuta or silently killing 3 VC) to the much more difficult silver and gold tasks (like entering the Soviet relay station undetected or completing the entire campaign on veteran difficulty). There are plenty of trophies to keep both casual and more hardcore players replaying levels, if they are into collecting achievements.

Online Multiplayer

Treyarch also makes their mark with the creation of the CoD points system. Similar to the Modern Warfare series, the player builds up the XP on their online character through succeeding in online matches. XP is used to level up their character and unlock new equipment. While Black Ops still has XP, it also has a challenge system that awards CoD points as well as a contract system that allows you to complete mercenary-style tasks. You do have to purchase the contract, but the rewards are much greater if you complete them during the match or series of matches. These points can unlock even better equipment and a much more extreme level of customization such as adding clan tags to your clothing / weapons. You are also awarded 1000 CoD points after your solider levels.

More importantly, you can actually wager the CoD points on matches that you compete in. You can finally bet on your own skill level and reap the rewards if you can finish in the top three players. Otherwise, you are wasting your points on the buy-in. My favorite is Gun Game, a mode that levels you up in weaponry depending on your kill streak. Kill someone with a pistol and you get to setup up to a rifle. Alternatively, you lose a level of weaponry when you are killed. Another great mode (almost definitely inspired from Goldeneye) is One in the Chamber. A single shot kills a player, but you only have one bullet. It often results in a game of cat and mouse while watching the other players duke it out with knifes. Other modes include Sticks and Stones (players killing each other with knifes / tomahawks) and Sharp Shooter (switches up everyone’s weapon at a preset time).

There's also a combat training mode in multiplayer that's extremely helpful for starting players not used to the fast paced (and often vulgarity laced) speed of online multiplayer. You can team up with a friend to take on teams of bots and earn more CoD points to spend. In regular multiplayer, you will find the usual suspects: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Headquarters and Domination. Level design is near perfect in regards to preventing camping or providing a small number of solid hiding spots for snipers. There are even cute instances like Nuke Town, a 50's style housing settlement that gets a nuke dropped on it at the end of each match. Don't expect to escape in a fridge though. That's just ridiculous.

If you are a statistical guru, Combat Record offers a plethora of information to digest after your latest round of multiplayer. The stat tracking system is unlocked after level 10 and offers information about your kill shots as well as rate of deaths. It's excellent analysis for picking upcoming weapons that you want to unlock. Are you a master with head shots armed with a basic pistol? Perhaps a new sniper rifle is in your future. My forte was plugging my foes in the midsection, so future upgrades to the shotgun was a better choice for me.

In addition to the multiplayer modes, you can also jump into a 2 to 4 player co-op mode called Nazi Zombies (similar to CoD: World at War). You basically fight off endless waves of zombies with your friends and try not to become one of the undead. The level variety here is pretty phenomenal, not to mention highly entertaining. It makes for a great break from competing for XP / levels and I often found myself logging on just to play a few rounds of Nazi Zombies.

In relation to online performance, I found myself in a smooth match about 80% of the time and lag issues in the remainder. Possible problems could be the massive user base that's playing already. On the Call of Duty: Black Ops website, you can check out the server load before you start playing. At the moment of this review, it's at Defcon 4 (one step away from a full load). I had the occasional dropped connection on matches, but nothing major to detour me from continuing to play and build up my online soldier. You can also upload multiplayer clips from your most recent matches into the in-game theater and these can be watched on the Call of Duty website as well as shared with friends. It would have been nice to be able to upload to Youtube though.